Thursday, October 26, 2006

[devolution] in which my take is taken to task

Toque commented on my post decrying the tit-for-tat between Scotland and England: I disagree, the sure sign of a disintegrating nation would be if we weren't having the debate. The fact is that asymmetric devolution is unfair and is having a destablising effect on the Union. Maybe it would have been better if devolution had never happened, or a dual-mandate solution had been proposed, but that is in the past now. At the moment the three main parties are doing nothing, allowing the acrimony to build: Labour has its head in the sand; Lib Dems make conciliatory noises but still hanker after regional assemblies, as do some in the Labour Party, and; the Tories, worst of all, have absolutely no answer. For the past three General Elections English Votes on English Matters has been in the Tory manifesto despite the fact that everyone that has considered it [including me] has described it as unworkable. My thrust [not made clear] was that it should never have happened in the first place and now is the time to reverse it.